Ubisoft Game Production

I recently purchased a game for PS2 called Rayman: Raving Rabbids. The game is a hilarious series of mini-games that definitely earns the title of "party" game.

When I went onto the Raving Rabbids website, I noticed the game was made by Ubisoft and thus decided what other great games 

they were making (assuming of course that Raving Rabbids was not their only good 

game). As you can see from above, the game is a cartoon-like animation where the rabbits stand on two legs, weild plungers, and love to scream at the top of their lungs. Naturally, I assumed the other games would be similar in design.

How very wrong I was...

 

Unlike the game before, this game is detail-oriented, realistic graphics which if fitting given the game topic. Tom Clancey's EndWar is a game designed to represent World War III, the worst and last world war. Gamers choose a country to represent as they battle their way through nuclear warfare. The game has none of the laughter from Rayman's minigames. It seemed odd how these two very different games could come from within the same company.

Looking on I found this...

Shaun White's Snowboarding video game-a sports game! The production company Ubisoft has a wide variety of games which surprised me because I figured that production houses would specialized in a particular style of design. The more I learn about this industry, the more I find that the companies must have many faces in order to make a profit and be quote-on-quote 'well-known'.

Final Fantasy VII - Watching Someone Play

Well, it was very difficult but I finally sat down and watched someone else play a video game and didn't grab the remote myself! Patrick played Final Fantasy VII at many different points and, while he tried to answer my questions, there was so much to learn I felt my head spinning.

I apologize for any mistakes but this is what I got from the game from my second point of view.

First of all, the story is about a planet that supports life through a "lifestream". A company used this lifestream and channeled it as a power source for the city. There was a Calamity called Jenovah that landed on the planet. Cells from Jenovah were placed in different people and clones of people to make them extra-ordinary (super strength, agility, etc). The company's efforts are going to destroy the planet. A group rises to fight this power and save the planet but in the end, the planet itself is the only thing that can defeat the oncoming threat. The story is a basic good conquers evil and has a heavy religious overtone (although to no specific religion).

Our group includes: a red dog-Red, a cat named Cait, a weapons expert-Barret, a tech expert-Cid, girls named Yuffie, Tifa, and Aerith, and a silent leader called Cloud. He played as Cloud for the story line and going through levels but at the battles, he would take a team and fight as each member. Our main enemy ended up being Sephiroth, the child of Jenovah. The end had has a different setup then most games in that the last enemy has three battles attributed singularly to him.

From my point of view, everything went super-fast. Patrick has played this game many times, to the point where he remembers not only where everything is but most of the dialogue as well. When battling, there is no hints as to what this thing or that thing that you summon is supposed to do. However, he had played enough that he knew what each one would do. My favorite move was the Knights of the Round, where King Arthur and his 13 knights would each take a turn beating down the enemy. The damage destroyed the enemy and the graphics were surprisingly amazing.

I was lucky enough to wrap up my lesson with watching the film that spawned from the movie, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. I had seen clips of this film but the cinematography and graphics are just astounding. It is animated but it is so life-like that at times I forgot it was animation!! From small hair movements to giant explosions, the images were lifelike and realistic. In fact one scene reminded me of a scene from Matrix where Nero bends back under the bullets. The film answered many of my questions, even though the story took place after the video game.

Watching someone play was very difficult. I have not played Final Fantasy other than two days where my boyfriend jammed it down my throat. The experience was boring and tedious because he continued to give me directions and advice to the point where I handed him the remote so he could play. I find this often happens when someone is passionate about a video game and I don't begrudge the experience. However, this time round I wanted to take the remote from him. FF7 was very intriguing and I hope to play it on my own someday when I have the time.